well, it seems that my self-introductions have finally ended, as i planned an actual lesson today, using a battleship type game called, er, battleships. it's one of the many language related games that are recommended as teaching tools to jets. hopefully it will go down well. my weekend. due to a holiday called "respect for the aged day" on friday, i had a three day weekend, which for me was somewhat superfluous, as i really haven't been doing anything that could be dignified by the term "work" all week. so friday i headed to sendai for a massive party at a small club called "shaft", a term i'd become all too familiar with during my time at tech. the party turned out to be a bit of a shaft, really...i bought a few cds before heading to the club, and i was one of the first people there. so i sat around and watching the opening ceremony for the olympics for 30 minutes before others started trickling in. i talked some with various ajet people before the party started kicking into gear, and the music got really loud. i don't mind that volume if it's a live concert, but the combination of poor ventilation (my clothes ended up smelling like ass b/c of all the smokers) and conversation shouted at the top of my lungs pretty much destroyed whatever appreciation i had for the party/setting. i did have some conversations with friends, though. one of the native japanese was shocked at the change in my apperance affected by a haircut and contact lenses. towards the end of the party, i was proselytized by an employee of disney on ice in sendai for the weekend. he bought me a drink after telling me how his job had made his life worthwhile, etc. i think he was less than thrilled when i told him my e-mail was in flux, and only gave him my home number (which is pretty much worthless, as i leave my answering machine on all the time.) but if he didn't get the hint when i mentioned that i had a degree in computer engineering (yeah, i know, whoop-de-doo), he wasn't gonna catch the fact that i have no interest in working for disney no matter how obsequious i became. the rest of the night, from an e-mail: "i almost had to spend the entire night in sendai (my last train for furukawa from sendai leaves at 10:17 every night), but saren [computer geek mentioned in entry about last week's (vastly superior) party] had a couple of people drop out for the ride south. and i crashed at his place [friday] night in southern miyagi. he's definitely got the hook-up. he's got a nice apartment, he teaches at the magnet schools for southern miyagi-ken and northern fukushima-ken, and the (large) town he's in is surrounded by mountains! it is sooo pretty, and i'm really jealous, as i crave mountains...[saturday] i took the local trains back to furukawa, which, along with the bus ride to sanbongi, ended up taking about 5 and a half hours b/c of bad timing transferring between trains." sunday i worked out and went a party that a former jet here hosted, which was interesting. lots of practice for my japanese, which still sucks. but i got some pointers in the local dialect here, called "hogen". the party featured an excellent meal, with the main course being temaki sushi, which each guest made for him/herself. i spent most of the evening being distracted by the japan-slovakia soccer match, which japan won. in one of the most curious coincidences i've encountered since coming here, the former jet's parents have lived in fayetteville for the past ten years. unfortunately, despite the common language, i don't think we had much else in common, which is a shame, as she seems like a nice person. today, i explained to a few of the ninth graders, via pictures on my computer, my life and roommates during my time at georgia tech. i'm not sure they were particularly enthralled, but i enjoyed looking at the pictures again. well, i'm tired now.
been listening to: the cars, the old 97s, the dismemberment plan, asian dub foundation, and dj cam